


and by foreign i mean brand new

by ciudad (descartes)



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-22
Updated: 2009-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:26:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/descartes/pseuds/ciudad
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>three things i've learned since coming to manila, by david archuleta (contains safe-for-work images)</p>
            </blockquote>





	and by foreign i mean brand new

**Author's Note:**

> For everyone who read this when I threw up a part of it on `update.bml` back in April. You are all lovely people, and I hope I can meet you at the concert ♥

_"Wow, this mango I'm eating is really good. I don't usually eat just a plain mango, but right now I'm really happy that I am."_  
~ twitter.com/[DavidArchie](http://twitter.com/DavidArchie/status/1771936963), 5:21 PM May 12th

David is dozing off at the foot of his bed, the hushed sound of a golf tournament on ESPN washing over him, when he hears the knock on his hotel-room door.

He jerks upright, a moan rattling itself loose somewhere inside his ribs. Numb fingers fumble gracelessly for the cellphone he'd forgotten he's cradling to his chest.

(There is a half-finished text message still glowing on the screen. It's addressed to his mom, seven cheerful lines assuring her of his health and safety. Attached is a photo of the mango that he had eaten, flowering sweetly in his mouth, when he first arrived.)

David peers through the peephole without really looking; the door is a solid presence that he can't help but lean on, letting some of his body-ache seep through into the wood.

_Cook_, his mind registers, and, _here_.

Cook looks bruised from fatigue, washed out in contrast to the brightly-colored welcome lei someone had proffered at some point still hanging around his neck. But he still amazingly, impossibly, looks the same as the last time David had seen him — face to face, not a rerun watched in a dressing room between sets.

Maybe it's because when they had last parted it had been in the hallway of another hotel in a different city. Same flowered wallpaper. Same single-serving sheets and prepackaged toiletries. Same weariness and banked adrenaline, but Cook had hidden himself behind sunglasses and quasi-soothing overhead lights then. Now his eyes, though red-rimmed and drooping lazily, were open and looking at David.

And they are blessedly alone. No halogens, or crammed schedules, or well-meaning assistants with headsets in their ears fighting for their attention. Even his dad had retreated to his own room with a quick hug and an admonition to not _stay up too late, I_ know _you_.

Cook starts forward, but David gets there first. He slides his arms underneath Cook and, tucking his head beneath Cook's chin, holds on. It's something Cook had taught him a long time ago, back when Cook had dispensed hugs like candy and laughed not unkindly every single time David had jumped. David's memory isn't solely for songs and Billboard hits and the kindness of strangers; there is a place for the remembrance of another person finding spaces in a body that he'd long ago thought was only _his_.

David buries his fingers into the soft petals of the sampaguita flowers, breathing quietly in time with Cook.

 

  
When he'd been provided with a sheet of common greetings, David had been somewhat relieved that Tagalog bears at least a passing resemblance to Spanish. It's a delusion quickly dispelled the third time he tries to sound the liquid syllables of 'Salamat po'.

When he thanks the waiter who hands him the glass of water, the confusion/delight in his eyes confirm David's worst fears.

He sighs at the waiter's back, vowing to practice (again) in front of the bathroom mirror before someone finally gets fed up with him and throws him out of the country for irreconcilable disrespect or something.

Cook, who's squinting at the menu, says, "Archie. Don't worry. No one's going to be offended, I promise."

He turns to Cook, ready to protest and— his heart skips a beat because Cook's dredged up the shadow of a smirk somewhere, the lines carved on his forehead smoothing out like a still ocean surface.

It occurs to David that jet lag hasn't been the only thing keeping Cook awake.

Cook, who's running a finger down the breakfast choices and muttering, "Eggs, eggs, eggs, bacon," with a distant discontent. David tilts his head worriedly. Cook had never been a picky eater (David can still remember the Great Microwavable Pasta Incident of 2008 that no one on the boys' tour bus ever talks about) and this is—

The mysterious mind-reading abilities of Cook kicks in again and he tells David without looking up, "I can feel you mother-henning from here, Archuleta. I'm fine."

_No, you're not,_ David almost blurts out, but Cook is Cook and David is David and when Cook's shoulders turn rigid not even Brooke's gentle hands can sway him. "Alright," David says, "but the eggs, um, they're not that bad. Unless they are, but I don't think so. I mean. Er."

That gets a low huff from Cook, and he drops the menu and leans back on his chair. "Just a little disappointed that potential food poisoning isn't part of my contract," he tells the airy ceiling lightly.

"What?"

Cook tells him. With hand gestures and maybe too much enthusiasm.

"That's—" David says in response, gaze dropping to the comforting orchid table centerpiece, "—even the feet and the," he hesitates, "blood?" (He decides to look up 'entrails' on his phone as soon as Cook isn't looking. Surely it does not mean what David thinks it means.)

"Yup," Cook replies.

The two of them are in a country with mangoes, and that chicken dish with the black pepper from last night, and mango shakes, and reddish apples, and _dried mangoes_. David leans forward, unable to help himself from whispering a concerned, "What for?"

There's a funny little smile on Cook's face when he says, "It's always good to try out new things."

 

  
Cook is flush against him: his large hands are on David's shoulders and his knee is pressing against David's thigh, and his mouth. Oh, his mouth — David used to stare at Cook's mouth a lot, fascinated by the pinpricks of light hair in his beard, but David has never expected his mouth to be like this. To have _intent_.

There's sweat prickling down his back, and David can't tell if it's simply the bright Manila sun soaking through the heavy concrete of the hotel or if it's just Cook, burning more fiercely than any man should have the right to be.

(Ten minutes ago, they'd been given a merciful sliver of quiet time before they had to hustle to the concert grounds for sound check, and David had sprawled on the bed, running through scales while Cook curled up on the sofa with his guitar.

David had been feeling good, his voice dipping easily, and he'd arched his back, the start of pre-concert excitement tickling the base of his spine.

The strumming in the corner had abruptly faltered.

Suddenly concerned, David had struggled up. His elbows had barely claimed purchase on the slippery-cool sheets and it had taken him a few fish-floppy tries to properly see Cook.

"What's wrong?" he'd asked. Cook had … well, Cook sometimes gets this expression, when he's buried in a Sudoku puzzle and so close to figuring out the final clump of numbers, which David realizes is part accomplishment (that he knows the answers) and part loss (that it's over and he can never go back).

Cook had stared at him like that, like he'd been a puzzle hard-fought and hard-won. It hadn't make sense. David had never thought of himself as something needing to be figured out.

David had licked his lips, nervous without understanding why. Cook had followed the movement with his eyes and said lowly, "I had to promise management I wouldn't make out with you on stage."

"Why?" David had asked.)

"Oh—" Teeth (_canines and incisors, oh my gosh_, wobbles the faint thought) glance against his throat, over his staccato pulse, then onwards, upwards to David's waiting lips, and—

—it's wet and even hotter than the room (the burn in David's cheeks, the slowly-pinkening strip of skin where Cook's hair met his collar, the dizzying heat of this unfamiliar continent) and David can hear the flutter of some wondrous song wherever Cook's tongue licked easy circles.

He tries tentatively to reciprocate, tongue flicking out to taste the seam of Cook's lips. Cook is sweat and cola and the rumbling groan from his lungs that David can feel, the choked-off laugh, the way he presses David harder against the mattress while his fingernails scrape gently at David's nape.

If I had known, David thinks.

If he had known this, the skinny thing composed primarily of elbows, not quite noticing the hand held out to him by a man with his name but in every way different, maybe he wouldn't have lasted through Hollywood Week at all.

If he had known this, 18 and brand-new, Cook's terrible jokes and funny faces making him feel normal when the world was expecting him to be someone else entirely, maybe he'd have understood the winking insinuations and have given himself away to the first sharp-eyed reporter just like that.

If I had known this— he thinks wildly, and stops. It doesn't matter. He knows _now_.

**notes:**   
**(1)** All photographs are taken by myself. They are not photos from the hotel (EDSA Shangri-La) the Davids are currently staying in, but of the Sofitel Philippine Plaza. (In my defense, (a) Sofitel is the logical choice of hotel as it is a stone's throw away from the concert grounds, unlike EDSA Shang which is three cities over, (b) 5-star hotels all kinda look alike &amp; (c) [how dare they deprive the Davids of the famous Manila Bay sunset?](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v51/rentboy/picsplz/sunset.jpg))  
**(2)** [Isaw](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaw) (pronounced _ee-sahw_) is grilled chicken intestines and is part of a variety of [Filipino street food](http://www.tsibog.com/special-features/favorite-pinoy-street-food-isaw-and-fishballs-2007-03-08.php) that, yes, does involve animal feet and blocks of blood. I'm not much for it, but it's very popular especially with the middle- &amp; lower-class and students. It's best served with vinegar and the threat of Hepatitis A ;)  
**(3)** Mangoes, fuck yeah!


End file.
